'Full Frontal' producer talks the hiring process for one of TV's most diverse writing staffs

"Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" has one of the most diverse
writing teams in television. And in order to achieve that, the
show had to get creative during the hiring process.

"I was bound and adamant about having a diverse writers room,"
"Full Frontal" showrunner Jo Miller told Business Insider. "And
they're the best writers I could ever imagine. They're all
fantastic."

"We don't feel like we solved the diversity problem," Bee
said in a new interview with Rolling Stone. "We didn't fix racism, quite.
I mean, wealmostdid. We'll see how things
pan out. I'm feeling really good about
it."

In order to achieve its 50% female and 30% nonwhite team of
writers, the show used a variation of a partially blind
submission process used by many TV shows.

The hiring decisions were made in stages. The first stage
resulted in a call for script submissions. Miller incorporated
aspects from the hiring process used by "The Daily Show" and
those "generously" shared with her by "Last Week Tonight"
showrunner Tim Carvell.

"[Tim Carvell] did what 'The Daily Show' did and took it
farther," Miller explained. "I took what he did, made it my own,
and did it a little differently."

Those first submissions would be wiped clean of all identifying
information, so it wouldn't favor those with experience. For
example, it included Carvell's directions to applicants on
how to set up a TV script. Miller also did a lot of recruiting
and outreach.

After those submissions were winnowed down, Miller then took a
look at the applicants' backgrounds and previous work in order to
decide who would get an invitation to submit a second script. She
gave extra care to invite applicants who exhibited
potential and also belonged to underrepresented groups.

"I didn't make a really small pile," Miller pointed out. "I did
an unusually large second round and I'm really glad I did. Some
people who had shone the first round, stumbled in the second
round. And some people who didn't stand out as great in the first
round, knocked it out of the park the second round. I wanted to
give as many people as possible a chance to show me what they
could do."

After reviewing those second submissions, the show made its
hires.

"I had four slots and I had more than four people who were
qualified to be in the room," Miller said. "I wanted a diverse
room and that certainly played into the final decision."

"I have literally filled my office with people who have
been underestimated their entire careers," Bee told Rolling
Stone. "To a person, we almost all fit into that category. It is
so joyful to collect a group of people who nobody has ever
thought could grasp the reins of something and f---ing go for
it."

Aside from gender and race, the writing team has a diversity of
backgrounds. For example, the team consists of "Daily Show"
alums, a former writer for David Letterman, and an
ex-staffer for the Maryland DMV.

The diversity of its writers is a very important part of
"Full Frontal's" "visceral" tone, which, as Rolling Stone's
writer put it, "required hiring people who had fury to
spare."

The show doesn't stop there. It's also developing a
mentorship program meant to bring in more talent who have been
underrepresented in the TV industry.

“We are going to learn a lot the first time we do it," Bee
said in a January article in New York magazine. "It may be janky, we don’t
know. Or it might be amazing, and you’ll find a diamond in the
rough, and then you’ll find a job for that person... and then you
start actually seeing the ratios change. That’s the goal.”

This article has been updated based on information
provided after the original publication.